V. 6.— If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. There is no if in the original; it is " and having fallen away;" for it is coupled with the preceding participles, enlightened, tasted, made partakers of, after all had fallen away. [This does not imply that the people of God shall ever fall away. We have already seen that the gifts and calling of God are without repentance; indeed this must be the case, because believers were chosen in and given to Christ. Ephesians 1:4; John 17:6; and shall never perish. John 10:28-29. Where God begins a good work he will carry it on till the day of Christ; but believers as well as others require cautions and warnings, and it is not improbable that there may be here an intentional obscurity in regard to the feelings excited by the truth as it is in Jesus, which is intended to serve as a beacon against any tendency to backslide from God. Our comfort ought not to be derived from our past feelings or fancied acquirements, but from the habitual contemplation of Christ as our Savior. We can only enjoy the assurance of hope by the contemplation of the glory of the sacrifice of Christ, and the absolute freeness of the great salvation. Let the apparent genuineness of our Christian experience be what it may, we can only have proof of our being living members of Christ by abiding in him and holding fast the truth.] While this is a solemn warning to him who thinketh he standeth, to take heed lest he fall, 1 Corinthians 10:12, it throws no doubt upon the perseverance of the saints, although we can only know that such is our character by holding fast the truth. It is evident from this and many other passages that men’ s natural feelings may be much excited, and such a change in their habits and sentiments produced as may strikingly resemble the fruits of the Spirit, while they are imposing on themselves and others. But it may be asked, why is it impossible to renew such persons again to repentance? It is not impossible for God thus to renew them, for with Him all things are possible. The impossibility appears to be the same as for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. " It is easier,” says the Lord, “for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom,” and adds, “ with man it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.” However, their case was so, very hopeless that the Apostle would not attempt to recover those who had apostatized, since by that act they had justified the conduct of the Jews in reviling and crucifying the Son of God as a blasphemer and an impostor, and thus, as it were, putting him to an open shame, or making him a public example. Matthew 1:19. They, as it were, set their seal to all the insults and injuries which were heaped on Jesus, and that after the fullest evidence had been given of his divine character and mission, not only by his resurrection but by the outpouring of the Spirit, of whose miraculous gifts they had been made partakers. Acts 2:33. We find a parallel passage in chap. 10:26, 29, where apostates are represented as treading under foot the Son of God, and counting the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified [“ Sanctified” may either apply to Christ, who says, "For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they may be sanctified through the truth.” He was set apart, like the paschal lamb, that his people might be set apart through the truth; or it may refer to the apostate, for the Scripture often speaks of them as they appear, for instance Simon Magus is said to have believed.] an unholy thing; and, having done despite to the Spirit of Grace, by rejecting the testimony he bore to Jesus. These passages confirm the observation already made that many of the Hebrews who had professed the truth had returned to Judaism; and the Apostle wrote this Epistle with a view of putting a stop to the apostasy by teaching the Hebrews the nature of the Mosaic law, by the misunderstanding of which they had been misled, and showing them that it was a temporary dispensation, a shadow of good things to come.